Met wrote:They're more expectations from the 4 of his other games which have been trash fires from a storytelling perspective if you stop and think about it for more than 2 seconds.

And for Cage, the gameplay IS the story.

Of Cage’s other games I have only played Heavy Rain - to me it’s a little masterpiece. Before it’s release I had concerns that it would be a QTE button masher, and anybody that says it is would be making a fair comment. But why it worked so well and resonated was because of the story and how deeply it could make you feel. Guilt, sadness and some genuine moments of fear! The part where I was in control of the woman who was hiding from an intruder - amazing! The story is the game, and it is a balancing act with gameplay elements. Reviews of Betond Two Souls were critical, but in Heavy Rain Cage made a game that was a hit that still generates sales today.

I’m expecting there will be websites like Polygon and Kotaku that will focus on the elements they disagree with politically, as is there right. Detroit might be good, it might be bad. I will share my thoughts with the forum after I’ve played it.

It starts off with your trying to solve the murder of the person who's body you've randomly entered from the future because it's a 4th wall breaking game where you ARE actually the Nomad Soul and the game talks to you, the player, directly. Fine, that's actually a cool idea, solving your own murder and only a handful of people even know you're meant to be dead. I'd be super down for that. Then it turns out demons are involved and there's this underground race of people and a resistance and a religion and you have to go find an ancient wizard to find an ancient warrior also David Bowie is an ancient AI god and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting like 5 different factions because I'm having an aneurysm remembering that game.

I'll let the idea of the gameplay being a mix of dialogue based exploration, first person shooter, and 2D fighting game slide on handling because it was trying to do a thing, sure. It's old, whatever. But the it handles like ass because it couldn't settle on one thing and make it work.

Also the primary gimmick was that you could swap bodies by inhabiting someone new. All you had to do was die and hope someone finds your body to enter them. Eventually you learn to just jump as you like, kicking their soul out and leaving your old body an empty husk, decaying in the street. This leads to awkward times where in order to open a gate, instead of just asking the peaceful guy who actually probably would happily let you through, you have to enter his body (destroying the body you left and effectively killing this person) to flip a switch, only to leave again and need another body later. This is a mandatory event and paints you as a psychopath. That's not even getting into the stuff where you can sleep with someone's wife because you're in his body and she brushes off "What if I told you I'm a guy from another dimension?" as hot, dirty talk.

God that was a mess. I love it so much.

Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy

Another game that starts out fantastic but then Cage doesn't get the memo and keeps overdesigning. You wake up straddling a body, knife in hand, and ankle deep in blood. You've clearly killed a guy but you're not a murderer. Evade the cops and figure out what's happening. Great! Yes! I can get behind this!

Also there's a cult that put a spell on you to mind control you. Ok, that explains it. I can get behind that.

To fight aliens.

And ancient Aztec AI monsters...

There's something about giant ghost bugs, too?

You have a kung-fu Matrix fight with a helicopter.

Also the apocalypse is happening and the whole world is freezing. Better have weird zombie sex in the hobo illuminati camp. Also you're dead, should have mentioned that.

Also takes from the Thomas Harris school of mental health patients where every one of them is just waiting for a chance to throw their gooseberry fool at you or eat your face.

Luckily David Cage gets reigned in a bit from here on out.

Heavy Rain

Detective strawberry floating Shelby. How did he do even half of what he set up? How did he crawl through the tunnels that Ethan barely even fits into, with sacks full of broken glass, likely going backwards? How many more traps does he have set up? That car gooseberry fool's only happening the once and we know Shaun is the 9th target. And don't get me started on the antique store. There's a difference between withholding the truth for a reveal, like, The Usual Suspects, and outright lying as to how events took place then going "Surprise! We tricked you!"

The marketplace chase scene had nothing to do with anything and is only there for a setpiece. There's no meaningful dialogue between the two cops, the perp (who we never even saw before so have no reason to suspect) gets captured offscreen even if you fail and the scene fades directly into them going "It's not our guy" regardless. It was just David going "But what if there's a chase scene with a chicken?" and nobody really questioning why it's happening.

Then everything about Madison. Jesus. She's JUST there for Cage to play out his fetishes. She gets back from just being sexually assaulted, sees Ethan, who she still has reason to believe is a child killer, and goes "Yeah, ok, I want me some of that." How many times is she almost raped? 3 if we count the dream sequence at the start?

I won't even mention how the blackouts and Ethan waking up holding origami figures are a result of the telepathic bond he shares with Shelby because that was them telling Cage to shut up for once. Execpt I just did because it's the only thing that explains that aspect.

strawberry float, man, that was SO close to being good.

Then there's Beyond

UNDERWATER

CHINESE

GHOST

BASE

But seriously:

Fire whoever it was who thought the jumbled chronology was a good idea and whoever signed off on it. I don't care who it was. Make them not have a job now.

There are so many moments where you're expected to feel emoshunz, but you don't know why. Jodie about to throw herself off a building. Awww....but why, though? We know she's homeless, but last scene she was training to be a CIA operative. Oh wait, now she's a child again. And now she's in the desert fighting ancient Navajo ghosts?

I don't know if it's much better in chronological order like in the rerelease, because I'm not touching it with a bargepole again, but I can only imagine the child section would drag on so bad. All I know is that Aiden is an unstoppable force of nature, except when the game tells us he can't go through walls or has a 2m tether despite being able to go half a mile last chapter. Also he is extremely picky about who he can possess because otherwise the game would break.

Oh yeah, also Ellen Page threatened to sue because QD modelled a fully nude version of her to use in the shower scenes and actually put it in the game that you could view using camera hacks. But I'm sure those rumours of the inappropriate photoshops and crass jokes in the workplace are unfounded.

Heavy Rain couldn't decide whether it was a film or a game and ended up being neither. Ask yourself how you think it would have reviewed as a film or TV series, and then ask yourself if the gameplay was in any way fun or added to the experience.

I'm convinced it sold on novelty value (a choose-your-own film is a strong sell) and on virtue of being a tech demo.

Beyond (the game I've played the most of) was pretty awful. It just doubled down on Heavy Rain's design flaws and was a convoluted mess of a story.

It's not even that the genre's not for me. There is a stark contrast with Telltale's The Walking Dead, which I found incredibly affecting and compelling. I still think the QTEs in TWD are pretty pointless, but it was the dialogue choices and "big decision" points that made TWD so good. They are completely lacking from Heavy Rain and Beyond, from all I've played and seen. I just can't see the appeal in the trial-and-error faux puzzle gameplay or the low budget netflix unedited writing.

Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream came under fire earlier this year over allegations of workplace sexism, homophobia, and inappropriate behavior. Today, Kotaku reported that in response the studio has filed lawsuits against two of the three French outlets who reported on those conditions.

Cage twice told Le Monde that, despite having a workforce that is reportedly 83 percent male, Quantic Dream “is not a rugby locker room.” He was sitting in front of a painting the newspaper described as “a penis with farting testicles” at the time.